1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to signal processing systems, and more particularly, to signal processing systems that process signals from a plurality of sensors for user interface purposes.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
Natural user interface (NUI) has become very popular in recent years with the introduction of true experience computer games and sophisticated consumer electronic goods. Most NUI-based products provide some or all of the following NUI functionalities: gesture recognition, gaze detection, face recognition, expression recognition, speech detection, speech recognition, and depth map generation. Some of the current NUI solutions are based on the generation of a depth map of the scene which is later enhanced with optical/visible light data of the scene.
Some of the disadvantages of the currently available NUI solutions are their dependency upon the accuracy of the depth map and the data derived therefrom. It would be therefore advantageous to provide a NUI processing system that provides a holistic, multi sense solution that encompasses a broader spectrum of NUI applications.
Some of the disadvantages of currently available NUI solutions are their dependency on a single modality of information. For example one system is doing gaze tracking and one system is doing gesture recognition. Thus on certain devices you will find multiple separate systems for gaze tracking, gesture recognition, face recognition, speech recognition, etc. This leads to several problems: (1) the combined CPU requirements of all systems exceeds the device CPU power; (2) electrical power over usage; (3) each sub-system works in its own time frame and they are not synchronized, therefore they fail to interpret the true intention of the user; (4) the combined processing time of the system is too long and causes a long delay (latency) between the user action and system response. In some systems the distance between the sensor and the processing unit also induce even more latency.